Steve Gloe was raised in Wood River, a bite-size piece of Americana located in south-central Nebraska.

Check that.

"I'm from Wood River, Nebraska, home of Scott Frost," Gloe said. The Husker connection. Of course. In Nebraska, you don't leave home without it.

Gloe, a Loveland resident, arrived on the Front Range in the 1990s, but he'll always bleed Big Red. Adopt CU? Please. He once flipped Chip, the Buffs' two-legged mascot, into the third row of a sea of red at Folsom Field, a moment that lives in fame in local Husker lore.

But then, that's a story for another day. This week isn't about a story so much as a final chapter. When CU plays Nebraska on Friday in Lincoln, it will mark the end of a series that has been played off and on since 1898, when Fred Folsom walked the CU sideline and the Buffs' other opponents included such luminaries as Denver North and Denver East high schools, Colorado College and the Denver Athletic Club.

The Buffs and Huskers have gone at it annually since the days of the Big Seven and the Big Eight, but each is walking away from the Big 12 in search of new beginnings and gobs of TV money. Gloe, the treasurer of Coloradans for Nebraska, will be at Friday's game with his dad, an original Memorial Stadium season-ticket holder, for what promises to be a melancholy moment.

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"I'll miss it," said Gloe. "I have memories etched forever. Hopefully, we'll have more games in the future. We're hoping for a home-and-home on the nonconference schedule, absolutely."

The wheels are in gear to make that happen, but it won't be the same. It can't be.

The rivalry — "if you want to call it that," says Gloe, repeating a familiar refrain within Husker Nation — is gone forever, assuming the two schools don't re-emerge in the same conference down the road.

Gloe finds himself at the crossroads of a sentimental journey through the past and the fast track to the future, one in which the Huskers will forge new rivalries in the Big Ten, where archrival-in-waiting Iowa, among others, awaits their arrival.

"Colorado has a lot to look forward to heading west, and the Nebraska fan base is champing at the bit to get into the meat of the Big Ten," said Gloe. "I'm going to miss them, but I doubt they'll miss each other going on. We're going to make some great new rivalries in the Big Ten. I don't think they're planning on going in there to finish second or third."

For all the excitement he's feeling about joining one of college's football's most historic conferences, Gloe will forever cherish the golden age of CU vs. Nebraska. That, of course, would be the late '80s through the mid-'90s, when Bill McCartney and Tom Osborne dueled.

"I'll never forget those days," said Gloe. "I'd lose hair, gain weight and lose sleep for months when Coach Mac had it firing on all cylinders. Those were some of the most fun memories of my lifetime."

Gloe won't have any trouble finding something to wear for Friday's game. In addition to autographed pictures of Frost, Tommie Frazier, Osborne and Ahman Green in his den, he has a closet filled with all things Huskers, including three pairs of Big Red pajamas. He even has the familiar block "N" on his humidor in anticipation of firing up a victory cigar.

He won't have to look far to see familiar faces, either. Brian O'Hearn, president of Coloradans for Nebraska, expects several hundred members to be in the stands Friday. A tailgate party has been organized that is certain to surpass the group's all-time high of about 600 attendees.

"Throughout the year, we've gotten extra tickets for this game just because it was the last CU game and the last Big 12 game at Lincoln," said O'Hearn. "We're kind of sad to see it end, but we're going to celebrate kind of the end of a long era. It's been a great thing for all fans."

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